Sunday, November 23, 2008

Destodgifying science

The holidays are approaching--this is a plug for a book that may change your young scientist's view of science. It may wreak havoc on her ambitions in high school, but I think it is healthy in the long run.

And it's not written for kids. It's a grown up book written by grown ups for grown ups.

Nature may be the finest science journal in the English speaking world.

Darwin, Einstein, Francis and Crick hung out there. Stories about the generosity of urchins compete with tales of the follies of man. It refuses to sanitize science, leaving in the warts and foibles as we (an inclusive "we" for anyone with functioning sense organs and curiosity) stumble upon patterns in our universe.

The first issue back in November, 1869 opened with a William Wordsworth quote:

To the solid ground Of Nature trusts the mind which builds for aye.

In 1941, Einstein gives jumps in when he contrasts science and religion:

It would not be difficult to come to an agreement as to what we understand by science. Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thorough-going an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization.

It condemns high falutin' language, insisting from its inception in the language of science be intelligible:

"The Priests of Science," he [Philosophus] said, "must consent to use the vernacular, before they will ever make a profound impression upon the heart of humanity."

[Philosophus was a young man who loved science in a fable penned by a Nature editor back in 1869]

I love that book. I left my love for metaphysics in a trash basket in Angell Hall at the University of Michigan around 1980--I boxed a renowned metaphysicist into a corner, and he dismissed me. He saved me a lot of time, and I'd like to buy him a pint of ale if we ever meet again.

Who needs metaphysics when we can construct marvelous conceptual models based on what can be perceived?